Today is the birthday of a very interesting character from 20th Centuary "Lou Andreas- Salomé" I rediscovered her while watching the movie "When Nietzsche Wept" few days back recommended by one of my friend. I had read about her while doing a little research on Nietzsche and found her to be a very interesting character in real life too. Her relationship with distinguished western luminaries, like Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Rilke, got me thinking about what actually made her out to be, what kind of person she was...

Lou Andreas-Salomé

Personally speaking, I thought she lacked a companion / Lover who would leave his foot prints along with her's on the beach…. Who would be besides her in times of her need and then no need. But then one person, in my opinion, who loved her deeply, she decided to throw… Personally, I think if she would have been with Nietzsche, they would have achieved much more together then they individually they did on their own. Because, I believe, love actually brings out the best version of the person one loves…..

(So please go ahead and love some one to bring out the best this Valentine's day and actualize the potential you can bring about in him or her … :-) Cheers!!!)

A Brief Note…

Lou Andreas-Salomé (born Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé, 12 February 1861 – 5 January 1937) was a Russian-born psychoanalyst and author.

When Salomé was 21, at a literary salon in Rome, she became acquainted with Paul Rée, an author and compulsive gambler with whom she proposed living in an academic commune. After two months, the two became partners. On 13 May 1882, Rée's friend Friedrich Nietzsche joined the duo. In Leipzig,Germany in October, 1882, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.

Left to right, Andreas-Salomé, Rée and
Nietzsche (1882)

Salomé and Rée moved to Berlin and lived together until a few years before her celibate marriage to linguistics scholar Friedrich Carl Andreas. Despite her opposition to marriage and her open relationships with other men, Salomé and Andreas remained married from 1887 until his death in 1930. The distress caused by Salomé's co-habitation with Andreas caused the morose Rée to fade from Salomé's life despite her assurances. Throughout her married life, she engaged in affairs or/and correspondence with the German journalist Georg Lebedour, the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, on whom she wrote an analytical memoir, the psychoanalystsSigmund Freud and Viktor Tausk, among others. Accounts of many of these are given in her volume Lebensrückblick.

Her relationship with Rilke was particularly close. Salomé was fifteen years his senior. They met when he was 21, were lovers for several years and correspondents until Rilke's death; it was Salome who began calling him Rainer rather than René.

In her memoirs, which were first published in their original German in 1951, she goes into depth about matters of her faith and her relationships. She says, and I quote..

“Whoever reaches into a rosebush may seize a handful of flowers; but no matter how many one holds, it's only a small portion of the whole. Nevertheless, a handful is enough to experience the nature of the flowers. Only if we refuse to reach into the bush, because we can't possibly seize all the flowers at once, or if we spread out our handful of roses as if it were the whole of the bush itself—only then does it bloom apart from us, unknown to us, and we are left alone.”

Salomé is said to have remarked in her last days, "I have really done nothing but work all my life, work ... why?" And in her last hours, as if talking to herself, she is reported to have said, "If I let my thoughts roam I find no one. The best, after all, is death."

It was believed that Nietzsche was a reclusive solitary man but I feel that among all the famous lovers around her, Andreas-Salomé was the loneliest... And I quote Nietzsche here from his book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

"Today you still suffer from the multitude, you individual; today you still have your courage undimmed, and your hopes. But one day will solitude weary you; one day will your pride yield and your courage fail. You will one day cry: "I am alone”! One day will you see no longer your loftiness, and see too closely your lowliness; your sublimity itself will frighten you, like a phantom. You will one day cry: "Everything is false”!"

Here is movie that was recommended to me by a friend to see and I actually love it as it gives a real life back ground to who she was and how in life things like this happen and leave a deep impression that changes you completely. (I am sorry, this is only one part as I could not find on the You Tube the whole movie link), and you actually need to see all the parts to complete the picture.) (Thank you my friend)

(Movie Curtsy You Tube)

The movie starts with Lou Andreas-Salomé asking Dr. Breuer to treat Nietzsche to cure of his depression because she has refused to marry Nietzsche when he supposedly proposed to her. Though I have read Nietzsche a lot and liked his thought very much, which is the underlying theme of the movie, as well there is Sigmund Freud thrown along the sidelines, what interested me a lot was the character Lou Andreas-Salomé.

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